


GEMINI

by Ryenan



Series: Star Signs [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-07
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-30 14:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12655335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryenan/pseuds/Ryenan
Summary: A creature of chaos can not - and would never - make something whole, undamaged, perfect, nonchaotic. Stiles returns to the world a creation of the nogitsune, pulled from the ether; body, heart, and mind made anew.





	GEMINI

**Author's Note:**

> They tell you there is nothing to fear but fear itself, but you have seen yourself in the mirror.

 

It has been a long time since the creature of chaos has seen a human body, and it doesn’t spend much time cataloguing every aspect, every fragility. When it spits out a new body, calls the universe to create instead of destroy, it creates chaotically.

How could it not?

A perfect copy, a perfect, human boy doesn’t claw and crawl from the ether into the world, wrapped in bandages and smoke. A chaotic, inhuman creature does. The soul is human, mostly, and the appearance is human, mostly, which should be enough.

Chaos wouldn’t – and couldn’t – restore Stiles to his true skin.

 

#

 

His cheeks are hollow, eyes too dark and limbs to thin, but that could be attributed to a lack of sleep and food.

His ears are a little pointed, teeth a little sharp, but he’s always been ‘interesting’ instead of handsome.

He has claws – thinner, sharper than the wolves, shorter too, less curved. But hair doesn’t cover his face, and his eyes don’t glow.

His hearing might be better, and his sense of smell, or he might just be hypervigilant still.

He tells no one.

 

#

 

Stiles catalogues all the physical changes, the new scars and missing ones, the speed with which his skin knits together over a cut.

If he looks closely, he can tell his eyes aren’t quite black, so he takes a picture, up close, blinding, every day. Stiles dates them, uses photoshop to check the exact color, keeps a spreadsheet of the percent change from the day before.

The color of his eyes varies with the cycle of the moon.

 

It’s hard to document the other differences; between pre-possession and post-possession Stiles. He doesn’t think he can crack a joke as easily, but that might have something to do with how somber everyone is.

He can’t seem to care that Allison is dead, but he didn’t like her much. She tortured Derek, Erica, Scott. Her grandfather tortured him. He’s safer now that she’s dead. Would he have been upset before? It’s hard to remember.

Peter is the one obvious difference. He remembers, clearly, how little he trusted Peter. But it was Peter’s idea that saved him, freed him from the nogitsune. Peter’s clever wording, most likely, that sent some of the dark power sliding into Stiles’ soul when the creature was forced out.

Peter has only done good things for the new Stiles.

 

#

 

It’s not hard to find him. Fancy car, small town, little regard for law enforcement or parking regulations – it leads him straight to a nice collection of townhouses near the preserve, mostly unoccupied. Wild animal attacks will wreak havoc on property values.

Peter doesn’t park in front of his own building, his own front door. It wouldn’t waylay another werewolf, but a hunter would fall for the trick.

Stiles is nether hunter or wolf, so he doesn’t approach either door, but does approach the car, sits by the driver’s side door long enough to leave an imprint of his scent.

Then he goes home, and waits for the wolf to come to him.

 

Peter comes late the next day. It takes longer than Stiles expected, but then he sees why – books. Peter has brought books.

“You noticed.”

“I noticed? Your scent is barely recognizable. It took me a moment to be sure it was even you.”

Stiles hums, moves back and lets Peter in the door. Scott hadn’t noticed, to wound up in grief. He hasn’t seen much of Isaac or Derek, but surely they would have said something. But Stiles knows Peter isn’t lying. He’s different, his scent should be too.

“A lot more than that has changed.”

“Have you shifted?”

Stiles raises an eyebrow, fights against the urge to show his ever-present teeth – fangs – to Peter. “I don’t think I’m that type of creature.”

“Tell me then.” Peter opens the first dusty old book and a notebook, uncaps his pen. “Tell me.”

 

#

 

Stiles’ world turned to ash with the nogitsune, and it stayed bleak, grey and white, after it left. Peter, with his blue eyes glowing, brings a little color in.

“Why is Scott the Alpha? Why haven’t you taken it from him?” Stiles asks, barely a question in his tone. He knows why, but wants to hear Peter say it.

“You wouldn’t have liked it, before.”

“He. He wouldn’t have liked it before. I’m someone new, I think. The nogitsune didn’t put the pieces back right.”

“You act like your old self,”

“- Like him -”

“Like him, very well. You act like him easily. You have everyone fooled.”

“Not Lydia.”

“Don’t take it badly, no one fools her. I certainly didn’t manage to.”

They’re silent for a moment, contemplative. Peter’s house has become their de facto meeting place, secure and hidden from the rest of the pack. Stiles never leaves anything here but his scent and take-out trash, but it feels more like a shared space than just Peter’s all the same.

“I want you in red.”

 

#

 

Stiles doesn’t look in the mirror much anymore. His hair has grown wild and long, curling gently like his mother’s did, but his face hasn’t changed. Besides the darkness of his eyes, his face belongs to old Stiles, not him. His cheeks and lips are soft again, beguiling. His face is a lie. What little he remembers about how he was, what he thought and wanted and believed before – it all surges up to flood him when he looks in the mirror. 

He gets the feeling his old self would not have liked him. Would have hated him, distrusted him. Tried to kill him, like with Peter.

A killing instinct and a face are about all he shares with his previous self. They have different priorities, directions, desires. Even memories from before are unclear, patchy and distorted. A killing instinct, a face, a voice. The ability to act, lie, fool his friends; pack; father.

Stiles doesn’t look in the mirror much anymore, because he is afraid, because he knows that what looks back with blackened eyes and sharp teeth is his real self. He knows what he can do, now, free of the nogitsune. He learned some important lessons. He knows he could do even better – worse? than a creature of pure chaos.

He looks in the mirror and knows he is, now, a creature of pure chaos. He loves it. He fears how much he loves it. He takes Peter, takes his red eyes, and takes whatever else he wants. He fears no one, nothing, no power or creature but himself.

And he loves it.


End file.
